Not quite dead yet
by Piratefish
Summary: It took a LONG while to get out of that hole. Time to get to business. Business being revenge, of course, if not on his enemies, then on their children. They have yet to learn that this world is thin, and there are monsters. One-shot, Post-series.


**A/N:** You might enjoy listening to **Hidan's Theme** for this. I know I did, when writing it.

* * *

«Nara?» The voice was broken, raspy. What began as a hysterical giggle collapsed into a broken cough.

Hyuuga Hotaru was not the only one on his team to take a nervous step back from the apparition. Nevertheless, he steeled himself. "Do you need… help, sir?"

The ragged creature just looked at him, with wide, wide eyes. Too wide. Purple, almost demonic. But that might have been his _other_ impressions of the creature colouring his perceptions, because...

...not _quite_ all of the man was still attached. _Chunks_ of him were just… gone…

The man spoke again, in a voice like someone took a kunai to his throat and left the broken tip inside.

"No… no, Hyuu… ga. Not Nara. It would have been… too easy. I have to... _work_ to serve my lord." He suddenly focused on the jounin-sensei of the team, Akadou Kyousuke.

"You! Is Nara Shikamaru still alive?"

The jounin's eyes were unreadable behind dark glasses.

"What business is that of yours?"

A grin spread over the strangers face. It was, almost, nostalgic.

"I'd be very _happy_ if you could take me to him. I'm sure he'd like to know how I'VE BEEN!"

The calm façade had shattered. The grin was now wide and bloodthirsty.

"He-he-he died thirty y-years ago, didn't he? The sixteenth clan-head..?" Aomaru had a very bad habit of blurting out _whatever_ when nervous.

"Oho! That means there'd be a seventeenth, yes? Or even an eighteenth? Could have died young, tragic, you know, happens all the time in the wars…" The man was jerkily pacing around, waving his arms with exuberance.

Kyousuke spoke up. "There's not been war for nearly a century."

The figure abruptly stilled. «No…» His gaze hardened. «That just won't do.»

Aomaru piped up. "What are you-"

"At least I know what I've got to do now. My Lord is patient, but even gods have their limits. I'll start with _you."_

His gaze was directed at Yuki, and he dashed forward far, far faster than Hotaru had thought him capable of. Than Hotaru himself was capable of.

Kyousuke was there first, though, and the madman was flung back with a tanto lodged in his chest.

Silence, for a moment, though the jounin quickly spoke up. "I suppose this is as good a time as any to teach you how to dispose of a body. Hotaru, if you could ghhkkk…"

Their sensei limply slipped off a bloodied tanto, and in his place stood a man with a wide, wide grin.

What followed was a bloodbath.

* * *

His team was dead. He himself wasn't. Yet. The man, the **monster**, had been thorough.

Hotaru found himself talking, in the lightheadedness of his pain and blood loss. He gasped out:

"I count… seven lethal wounds on you, and three crippling... blows. Not even counting... your original condition. What… are you?"

The eternal smile slipped for a moment, into an embarrassed frown.

"I suppose I _have_ gotten rusty. Thank _you _for such a nice warm-up." And it was back.

"You said… You were going to start a war. _Why?"_

The immortal suddenly looked serious, and far, far more dangerous than he had before, even in the midst of battle.

"War… war is death, and hurt, and pain. And what else is a devout worshipper supposed to cause? I can't die, even though _several _people have tried rather THOROUGHLY. Shall I tell you how I survived being BLOWN TO BLOODY PIECES?"

Hotaru's breaths were coming quick and shallow, his vision tunneling. He had nothing in him to answer.

"Well, first of all, I can't rot. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, but I could move. By swallowing earth, mostly. And eventually, I found a piece of my spinal cord, and I waited, and it healed back in place. It got a LOT easier when I had most of my spine back, let me tell you!"

Hotaru drew a deep, rattling breath.

"As to why, well, you at least still have Kages, don't you? Kages and their villages. I always wondered, you know. A man who kills an army in a flash is called hero. A man who kills ten thousand in his life is called a lord. I wonder, then. What do you call the man who kills them ALL?"

Hidan stared deep into wide, dead eyes.

"There is one thing you can count on, in this world. I serve destruction. And I DON'T **DIE**."

* * *

"I think... yes. My spine needs rearranging. Damn, MORE waiting..."


End file.
